Black day

 Special Operations Forces (SOF) of the Ukrainian Army reported the death of servicemen of the 73rd Naval Special Operations Center on Thursday night. Z-channels claim that the dead tried to land on the Tendra spit in the Kherson region. 

According to a message from the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the fighters died “ensuring the departure of the main forces of the group after completing a special mission.” The Ukrainian Armed Forces did not disclose details; there are no official data on the number of deaths.

Tendra Spit is a long narrow island in the Black Sea near the coast of the Kherson region. Russian military publications write that if the spit were captured, the Ukrainian Armed Forces would be able to strike at the occupied part of the Kherson region (the length of the island is about 65 km) and the northwestern part of the annexed Crimea.

On the spit there is a lighthouse built almost 200 years ago. The island has been under Russian occupation since February 2022.

(BBC news)

 On the evening  Russian troops attacked the village of Velikiy Burluk in the Kharkov region with guided bombs, resulting in the death of two people, the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs reported.

Several bombs, according to the head of the Kharkov regional military administration, fell on the territory of the railway station, where a family of three was located at that time. Two family members, a 48-year-old man and his six-year-old granddaughter, died on the spot.

Another victim is the mother of the deceased girl; she was hospitalized in serious condition.

A railway station destroyed by an airstrike in the village of Velikiy Burluk, Kharkov region

President Vladimir Zelensky said that over two years of war, Ukraine’s losses in killed amounted to 31 thousand people, while the Russian army lost six times more. Ukraine has not yet published official data on its losses. Russia does not do this either.

Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Alexander Syrsky and Minister of Defense of Ukraine Rustem Umerov visited the command posts of the Ukrainian military on the front line. “The situation is difficult in many areas,” said Syrsky;

As a result of a Russian missile attack on the city of Konstantinovka in the Donetsk region, the building of the railway station was destroyed;

Russian soldiers beat up cafe patrons in annexed Crimea;

Ukrainian troops retreated to the outskirts of the village of Lastochkino. It is located near Avdeevka;

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said that about half of Western weapons arrive to Kyiv late

On Sunday night, Russia launched a drone strike on Ukraine. The Ukrainian Armed Forces reported that they managed to shoot down 16 out of 18 drones

On the second anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion, Western leaders arrived in Kyiv to express solidarity with Ukraine

The second spy plane

 

The Russian A-50U military spy plane had been downed yesterday evening. It is the second plane of this type which was downed in just over a month. 

The plane was hit between the Russian cities of Rostov-on-Don and Krasnodar, Ukrainian military sources said, over 200km (124 miles) from the front line.

Russian emergency services reportedly found plane fragments in Kanevskoy district and put out a raging fire.

Odesa

 

Former Russian president Dmitriy Medvedev on Thursday said all Russians love the Ukrainian city of Odesa and hope and pray for its return to the Russian fold.

Later the same day the Kremlin hit the Black Sea port with kamikaze drones, killing three residents including a child.

“Odesa, come back home! We have waited and waiting for Odesa in the Russian Federation,” said Medvedev, current Deputy head of Russia’s National Security Council.

“We (in Russia) have waiting for this city, for its entire history. Because of the type of people that live here, considering the language that they speak, this (Odesa) is ours, a Russian Federation city, an ethnic Russian city,” he said.

 The Ukrainian Armed Forces launched a missile attack on a training ground in the Donetsk region near Volnovakha, which could have killed at least 60 people, several sources familiar with the situation told the BBC

The Ukrainian military called the statement of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu about the “sweep” of the Armed Forces of Ukraine bridgehead near the village of Krynki on the left bank of the Dnieper in the Kherson region a falsification of facts.

The day before, Shoigu said that “Krynki has been cleared,” and there are Russian posts on the banks of the Dnieper, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces say that they continue to hold the positions they occupied last year, inflicting significant losses on the enemy

(BBC news)

 Early morning, a residential building caught fire in the Sumy region as a result of airstrikes and artillery shelling, the regional military administration reported. “As a result of the shelling, a fire occurred in a residential building. The fire has been localized. The bodies of two victims were discovered. Debris clearance and search operations continue,” officials said in a statement.

Russia has not commented on the shelling of the Sumy region; the BBC cannot promptly verify the information.

 The Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR) of Ukraine has confirmed the death of Russian pilot Maxim Kuzminov, who hijacked the Mi-8 helicopter for Ukraine. "We can confirm the fact of death," said Andriy Yusov, HUR representative, to Kyiv Post. Earlier, Russian media reported that Kuzminov had been found dead in Spain. In Russia, a criminal case was opened against the young man under the article on "state treason".

As seems to me it looks like the Intelligence cover operation. Perhaps he received other documents, and he should forget about his Russian origin. If he should like to be alive.

 Russia said its forces took complete control Saturday of a city Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine that was the focus of intense combat for months, a development that Moscow could use to boost morale as the second anniversary of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine approaches with the war largely at a stalemate.

Heavily fortified with a web of tunnels and concrete fortifications, Avdiivka lies in the northern suburbs of Donetsk, a city in a region of the same name that Russian forces partially occupy. Capturing Avdiivka could be a timely boost for Moscow and serve as a possible springboard for Russia to drive deeper into the region.

Fewer than 1,000 people remain in the city, according to the Donetsk regional governor, Vadym Filashkin. The city, with a prewar population of about 31,000, is today a bombed-out shell of what it once was. 

In a short statement posted on Facebook, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi said the Ukrainian troops were moving to “more favorable lines." 

“Our soldiers performed their military duty with dignity, did everything possible to destroy the best Russian military units, inflicted significant losses on the enemy in terms of manpower and equipment.

 Our troops did leave Avdiivka. Some information agencies said that some ukrainian soldiers were imprisoned by russians. 

Alexei Navalny, has died in prison

 

Russia's most significant opposition leader for the past decade, Alexei Navalny, has died in prison inside the Arctic Circle, the prison service said.

Seen as President Vladimir Putin's most vociferous critic, Navalny was serving a 19-year jail term on charges widely considered politically motivated.

He was moved to an Arctic penal colony, considered one of the toughest jails, late last year.

The prison service in the Yamalo-Nenets district said he had "felt unwell" after a walk on Friday.

He had "almost immediately lost consciousness", it said in a statement, adding that an emergency medical team had immediately been called and tried to resuscitate him but without success.

"The emergency doctors declared the prisoner dead. Cause of death is being established."

Avdiivka is at risk of falling into Russian control

 The US has warned that Russia could seize Ukraine's key eastern town of Avdiivka - the scene of some of the fiercest fighting in recent months.

"Avdiivka is at risk of falling into Russian control," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, citing Ukraine's ammunition shortages.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed to do everything to "save as many Ukrainian lives as possible".

Russian troops have made gains in Avdiivka, threatening to encircle it.

The town - which has been almost completely destroyed - is seen as a gateway to nearby Donetsk, the regional Ukrainian capital seized by Russian-backed fighters in 2014 and later illegitimately annexed by Moscow.

 In the morning, Russia attacked Ukraine with various types of missiles, including ballistic ones. In total, the enemy launched 26 missiles, including Iskanders and Kalibrs. Anti-aircraft defense destroyed half of the enemy's aerial targets. The flight path of the high-speed aerial targets that violated Ukrainian airspace from at least three different directions indicates that they made their way over a considerable distance and circled around Kyiv and the western regions.

A map of exactly how the rockets moved this morning is published on monitorwar. The explosions thundered in Lviv, Dnipro, Kyiv Oblast, Poltava Oblast, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv Oblast and Khmelnytsky Oblast. They led to numerous injuries and damage to peaceful objects.

 The Russians hit the town of Selidove for the second time during the night. As a result of the attack, the building of the hospital was damaged and a fire broke out.

Nine apartment buildings and the building of the central city hospital were damaged.

According to the latest data, three people were killed as a result of the enemy attack. It is also known about 12 victims, four of them are children. Representatives of local authorities specify that a pregnant woman and a mother with an 8-year-old child died. Six more patients were injured, including a six-month-old boy. At least one hospital employee is among the injured. 32 patients who were not injured were evacuated.

Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko reported that the enemy's main attack was on the maternity ward. At the time of the shelling, there were almost 200 people in the hospital, dozens of patients in serious condition.

*****

The large landing ship of the Russian Federation "Cesar Kunikov" was destroyed in the Black Sea. As reported by the General Staff, the destruction of the enemy ship is a joint effort of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with units of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense.

 (CNN)     Ukraine claims it has evidence Russia fired an advanced hypersonic missile – one that experts say is almost impossible to shoot down – for the first time in the almost 2-year-old war.

The government-run Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise said in a Telegram post that debris recovered after a February 7 attack on the Ukrainian capital pointed to the use of a Zircon hypersonic cruise missile by the Russian military.

“Markings on the parts and fragments, the identification of components and parts, and the features of the relevant type of weapon” point to the first-ever use of the Zircon in combat, said the institute, which is part of Ukraine’s Justice Ministry.

Ukrainian authorities reported four people were killed and 38 others injured in Kyiv during the February 7 attacks, but no casualties have been directly attributed to the alleged Zircon missile.

There was also no mention of the launch platform for the missile, though previous reports in Russian state media say it has been deployed on a warship.

Experts say the Zircon, if it lives up to what the Russian government says about it, is a formidable weapon.

Its hypersonic speed makes it invulnerable to even the best Western missile defenses, like the Patriot, according to the United States-based Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA).

The alliance says its speed has been put at Mach 8, or almost 9,900 kilometers per hour (6,138 mph). Hypersonic is defined as any speed above Mach 5 (3,836 mph).

“If that information is accurate, the Zircon missile would be the fastest in the world, making it nearly impossible to defend against due to its speed alone,” the alliance says on its website.

The head of the Intelligence Service at the Norwegian Ministry of Defense, Vice Admiral Niels Andreas Stensens, said that over the past year, Russia, despite the international sanctions imposed against it, has noticeably strengthened its position and achieved success in conducting military operations against Ukraine.

(BBC news)

 The whole family died: three young children were burned alive by a Russian drone.

The head of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration, Oleg Sinegubov, reported on his Telegram channel that the drones hit the oil depot, where the fuel was leaking from. One tank is still full, so the danger remains. Several large fires broke out on the streets of the residential sector due to fuel spillage. An entire family of five people burned alive in one of the private residential buildings. Young parents and their three young children - seven-year-old, four-year-old and seven-month-old boy. The man's body was found in the corridor of the house, and the mother and children tried to escape in the bathroom. The body of the youngest boy could not be found.

The burning temperature during the fire was such that the baby's bones and body were almost reduced to ashes.

 At least seven people have been killed in an overnight Russian drone attack on Ukraine's north-eastern city of Kharkiv, a baby and two children - aged four and seven - were among the victims. Photos from the city near the Russian border show a number of houses on fire after a petrol station was hit. Visibly emotional, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said "the Russian aggressor is ruining our city. But we will overcome. We will win," he said in a video message. He added that 14 houses were set ablaze.

Four people were injured in Odesa due to a Russian drone attack. The wreckage of one of the downed UAVs damaged the technical structure of the port infrastructure, one of the company's employees received a shrapnel wound. The man was hospitalized. The enemy directed the second and third waves of attacks on the port infrastructure of the Danube - air defense forces destroyed 12 drones. Three people, employees of near-port enterprises, were injured. The men received numerous shrapnel wounds and mine-explosive injuries. All are hospitalized. One of the victims is in serious condition.

A man stands near a ditch in the yard of a residential building damaged by a drone attack in Odesa on January 17, 2024

Also, according to the head of Odesa OVA, the Russian army struck the civilian infrastructure of Izmail - damaged technical premises of industrial and service facilities, road surface, trucks and cars, windows were broken in several residential buildings, facades and roofs were broken.

Russia's military has made no public comments on the reported strikes.

 

Demonstrators gathered on Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Kyiv demanding the reinstatement of General Valery Zaluzhny. People explain that they consider such actions to be unreasonable and play into Putin's hands.

 The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, dismissed 50-year-old Valery Zaluzhny, who had been the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for more than two years.

    58-year-old Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrsky was appointed as the new Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in place of the dismissed Valery Zaluzhny.

The differences between Zelenskyy and Zaluzhnyy began to emerge when the Russian and Ukrainian armies dug in and the front lines froze. 

The general rejected their arguments. He noted that his caution after the initial assault failed had resulted in saving vital troops and equipment. He argued that he could not plan the next counteroffensive if he did not know what resources he had. He said politicians should mobilize society.

Under the circumstances, it was right that the general left. In a democracy, the armed forces should be subordinate to politicians. General Zaluzhnyi's credibility as commander-in-chief had already been fatally undermined by rumors of his dismissal. The longer Mr. Zelenskyy appeared too weak to fire him, the more his own credibility suffered. The question is where this will lead the president and the new commander, Syrskyi.

(The Economist)

 Early morning of Wednesday, February 7, a massive rocket attack took place in Ukraine. Six regions were attacked by the Russians. This was reported by the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Ihor Klymenko.

In the capital, about a dozen people were injured in the Holosiiv and Dnipro districts due to the Russian attack. At the same time, communications are damaged. Rescuers and police are working on the ground. There is destruction in an 18-story building in the Holosiivskyi district. Rescuers are evacuating people and extinguishing the fire. There are probably dead people under the rubble. The service station building and cars also caught fire. Kyiv region: in Buchanskyi and Fastivskyi districts, at least 10 private houses, commercial buildings and communications were damaged due to the Russian attack. According to preliminary data, there were no casualties.

Mykolaiv: one person had been killed as a result of a Russian missile attack. 20 private houses and the gas network were damaged. Tents of the State Emergency Service were deployed on the spot and psychologists were involved. Kharkiv region: around 6 a.m. Russian invaders hit the regional center. As a result of the attack, two people were injured. Rescuers saved one person. They are currently surveying the area. In Dnipropetrovsk and Lviv regions, according to operational data, there were no casualties.

Photo: State Emergency Service of Ukraine.

Air defense forces shot down a Russian missile in the sky over Kyiv on February 7, 2024.

Photo: Gleb Garanich/REUTERS

At least three people died and more than 15 were injured as a result of another massive attack by Russian troops. In the photo: A damaged residential building in Kyiv, February 7, 2024.

Photo: Valentyn Ogirenko/

 On the night of Tuesday, February 6, Russian troops hit the village of Zolochiv, Kharkiv region, with two S-300 missiles. As a result of the attack, a three-story hotel was destroyed, a two-month-old boy was killed, and three women were injured. Women aged 21, 28 and 39 with explosive injuries and shrapnel wounds were hospitalized, including the mother of the dead child. The rocket attack also damaged seven private houses, 19 objects of civilian infrastructure, including shops, cafes and kiosks, two administrative premises, and at least five civilian cars. Tuesday morning, it is known about artillery and mortar attacks by Russian troops on about 20 settlements in the Kharkiv region. The Russians carried out airstrikes on five objects.

 "Among the victims of the explosion in the Adriatic restaurant in Lysychansk was Oleksiy Poteleschenko, who held the position of "Minister of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the LPR". Until 2014, he worked in managerial positions in the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, but in 2014 he switched to the side of the "LPR", starting to work in the "People's Militia LPR", and later in the "Ministry of Emergency Situations of the LPR", becoming the "Minister of Emergency Situations of the LPR" in September 2023, the message reads.

The self-proclaimed "authority" of the temporarily occupied Luhansk region announced the shelling of a bakery in the city of Lysychansk on February 3. The occupiers claim that 28 people, including a child, died as a result of the attack.

At the same time, in the photo from the site of the shelling, which was published by the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia, it can be seen that the Adriatic Restaurant was damaged.

"Noviny Donbasu" publication writes that there was a cafe and a bakery in this building.

Pro-Russian correspondents wrote that local pro-Russian officials and security forces gathered there for the celebration.

As noted, a number of guests were saved by non-punctuality — they were late for the birthday of the owner of the establishment and "the blow happened before their eyes."

 (CNN)

At least 28 have been killed in an attack on a building in the town of Lysychansk in the Russian-occupied region of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, the region’s Moscow-installed head said Sunday.

In a statement on Telegram, the head of self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic Leonid Pasechnik said emergency services had rescued 10 people from under the rubble after what he said was a Ukrainian attack on a building housing a bakery on Saturday.

Pasechnik said Sunday has been declared a day of mourning in the Luhansk People’s Republic for the victims of the attack.

Ukraine’s defense ministry has not commented on the incident.

Lysychansk was taken over by Russian forces in July 2022, becoming the last town in the key region of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine to fall.

Ukraine has been escalating its attacks on Russia and Russian-controlled territory as its ground offensive stalls.

 Problems of soldiers of the Ukrainian Foreign Legion.

He was 25 years old when he came from Canada to defend Ukraine. It was in March 2022, the war had just begun, the situation was desperate. No, he had no connections with Ukraine. Not only that. Until March 2022, he did not see a single Ukrainian in sight, because there was not a single Ukrainian in Manitoba, Canada, in the Indian village where he grew up. But the Russians attacked Ukraine, and Ukraine (10 times weaker than Russia) defended itself with all its might. An Indian came to help Ukraine.

His name was Lathlin Bercier Austin, call sign Isidore. He fought at the front for 14 months - all the time on the front line. Then I went home to Canada - things in Ukraine were already better, you could relax and do your own business. It didn't work! Ukraine was in his heart, he could not live peacefully in Manitoba when Ukraine was fighting to death. He returned to Ukraine to the front, to Donbas. Defended Avdiivka, died.

He died in Ukraine.

You can no longer help Isidor, but you can help his memory. The fact is that according to official Ukrainian documents, he went missing. His body remained somewhere there, near Avdiivka.

The proof of his death is a drone recording, but this is not enough for military bureaucrats. And "disappeared" is, you know, such a slippery record... If Lathlin Bercier Austin died for Ukraine, everything belongs to him. If "disappeared" - nothing is due. Volunteers work with lawyers to prove through the court or some other legal way: Isidor fought and died for Ukraine.

 Russian troops attacked Kherson from the air, as a result of which an elderly woman and a 17-year-old boy were wounded, and houses in the city center were damaged. A 73-year-old woman was in the yard during the shelling. She was hospitalized with a contusion and a shrapnel wound. As a result of the aviator in the city center, multi-story and private houses were damaged, a three-story building was partially destroyed, and nearby houses were also damaged. In Kherson region over the past 24 hours, Russians have carried out 279 shellings, firing 1,606 shells, using artillery, mortars, anti-aircraft guns, tanks, UAVs and aviation. 

            The Russians fired 26 shells at the city of Kherson. the Russian military took aim at the residential quarters of the populated areas of the region.

Today, due to Russian aggression, 2 people died, 6 more were injured.

 The Ukrainian military sank the Russian missile boat "Ivanovets" at night. The corvette was 56 meters long. It was sunk with the help of unmanned attack boats (marine drones) 9 km from the entrance to Lake Donuzlav near the village of Okunivka in Crimea. The first strike by the drone on the corvette was at 03:42, the second at 03:44, the third at 03:47. Around 04:00, the crew of the corvette stopped fighting the ship's survivability and began evacuation. At 04:46 the corvette tipped to the stern and sank. According to official data, the crew was evacuated.